copyright

Is there a right of publicity for animals? More specifically, do pets have a right of publicity in California? These may seem like silly questions at first glance, but the answers could be very important if you have a pet with a social media presence. These days, it is not uncommon for people to create social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest where they post daily photos of their pets. These accounts can be incredibly popular and often gain hundreds or even thousands of followers.

You may have worked very hard on your public image, especially if you use that image to generate revenues through a brand or persona that you publicize online. When someone takes your carefully cultivated image without permission, they are stealing your hard work to make money for themselves. Moreover, their actions could be causing significant harm to your image by associating it with a product or service that you do not want to be associated with.

It is vital for any business owner to know the answer to this question: “What is a trade secret?” Sometimes, a company’s intellectual property assets are valuable precisely because information about those assets is not generally known to the public. These are considered “trade secrets,” and both California and federal law afford businesses with legal protections for their trade secrets. These laws recognize that when a company loses its proprietary information due to theft or infringement, the results can be disastrous.

The explosion of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has led to interest in related digital assets. Among the most popular – and volatile – of those digital assets are Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs. As more and more investors consider NFTs, questions are being asked about the legality of this technology. Specifically, people want to know about copyright law & NFTs. Is it possible to hold a copyright for an NFT? Are you allowed to create derivative copies of your NFT and reproduce it?

“Intellectual property” covers a wide range of business assets, such as books, screenplays, photos, movies, computer software code, inventions, and formulas. Copyrights, trademarks, and patents are the main types of intellectual property. Federal law provides strong protections for the creators of original works, inventors, and licensors of IP rights, but the law is complex.

When it comes to determining copyright ownership, it helps to understand exactly what a copyright is and who can benefit from a copyright. Copyright is a form of intellectual property that provides the creators of original works of authorship with protection against infringement by competitors or anyone else who is not authorized to use, display, or present the work for profit.

Copyright protection is a vital part of ensuring that your creative work is not used or appropriated for profit by someone else without express authorization. In fact, one of the reasons that copyright laws exist in the first place is so that authors, musicians, painters, photographers, filmmakers, and others have a financial incentive to create original works of authorship, and so that they don’t have to worry about their hard work being stolen after the fact.

Copyright protection exists to ensure that the creators of original works of authorship, such as movies, photographs, and novels, are able to enjoy the fruits of their labor, so to speak. As set forth by U.S. copyright law, creative artists and authors are generally afforded the exclusive right to profit from their work for a certain period of time.

One of the most common tactics used by copyright trolls is sending a cease and desist letter demanding that you stop using “their” intellectual property, as well as insisting that you owe them a substantial amount of money for any use that has already occurred. These letters are ostensibly supposed to put you on notice about a copyright violation, but they are often abused by individuals and companies who are simply looking to make a quick buck by threatening a frivolous copyright lawsuit.

Original creative works can provide valuable revenue streams to their authors. That’s one reason that copyright can be used to protect original works in certain tangible mediums (e.g., movies, books, photographs, and computer software) against unauthorized use. Unfortunately, copyright trolls often attempt to take advantage of the law by pressuring others into cash settlements. When this happens, the party on the receiving end of a copyright demand letter will need to respond immediately – or risk a costly lawsuit.